This Love is Like a Wild Rose
by Avnaihi
Summary: Harry and Draco should be enemies. Are supposed to be enemies. But love can burgeon even amidst the darkness and suspicions of war, and Harry and Draco’s relationship changes drastically as a result. HP/DM. Prompt: Valentine’s Day.


THIS LOVE IS LIKE A WILD ROSE (WILLING TO DRAW BLOOD IN ITS DEFENSE)

**Summary: **Harry and Draco should be enemies. Are _supposed _to be enemies. But love can burgeon even amid the darkness and suspicions of war, and Harry and Draco's relationship changes drastically. HP/DM. Prompt: Valentine's Day.

**Rating: **T

**Warnings:** Harry/Draco (_slash, _people), angst, AU after book 5 or 6 (the timeline's pretty nonspecific), character death

**Disclaimer: **Did any of this happen in the Harry Potter books? No? _Really?_ Then I guess I should stop deluding myself about owning them.

**A/N:** So this was written from a prompt from _animeangel088_, who requested: Harry/Draco, Valentine's Day, established relationship, angst. Hopefully, this is something like what you were hoping for! (And yes, I do prompts. But only if I like the prompt, and you ask me nicely.)

Much thanks to Bailey for the handholding, summary and title (a conglomeration of a quote by Mark Overby) – you're the best, Bailey!

* * *

It is Valentine's Day.

Pink and red paper hearts flutter like butterfly wings from the ceiling. Draco can see them sticking out of Potter's hair, ridiculous Gryffindor declarations of love and devotion.

What they're doing is forbidden, taboo. The risk makes Draco's blood hum, and he threads his hand in Potter's hair as Potter kisses him, slow and unhurried as a dream.

Draco breaks the kiss first, listens to their breathing, harsh and broken and unexpectedly _happy _in the shadows of the corridor. "Happy Valentine's, Potter," Draco smirks irreverently, whispering the words into Potter's mouth.

Potter angles his head back, away from Draco's, his mouth kissed bright red. Above them, his green eyes are shadowed and tense. "It's _Harry," _Potter says, his voice tight, all prior happiness flitting away like prey before a predator.

"I think," Draco surveys Potter with mercurial eyes, prowling forward to capture Potter's mouth with his own, feels Potter's lips chapped and pliant under his, "you complain too much about something that's mere convenience for both of us."

Dark tendrils of hair obscure Potter's face as he lowers his head, posture tense and defeated, before Potter abruptly stiffens his shoulders, and glares. "Sure, _Malfoy_," he spits, and his next kiss is rough, bruising, as his hands grip hard enough to leave indigo fingerprints smudged into Draco's skin like bracelets.

Potter shoves Draco back against the cold stone walls of the castle, and Draco tells himself he likes this better than the gentle, delicate kisses of before.

Far less sentiment involved.

Far more appropriate.

Draco is happier with this, truly.

* * *

It is Valentine's Day.

Parts of the wizarding world lie in ruins, savaged with hastily dug graves and heavy with sorrows.

Voldemort is winning.

Sunlight streams sharp-edged onto their skin through the broken windows of the derelict shack Draco Apparated them to minutes before. Draco runs his hands down Harry's bare skin, fingers ghosting over jagged new injuries and the silvery smooth tracks of old scars, stopping when he feels the green silk ties binding Harry's wrists to the staircase.

They kiss, but it's more like fighting; rough and needy and desperate in a way it wasn't only two years before, and Harry strains at his bonds, trying to touch Draco.

Harry looks good in Slytherin colors, Draco's always thought so.

Regret flows over him like rain at the thought.

He leans forward and kisses Harry again on the lips, gentle and chaste, before stepping abruptly back.

"What the hell, Draco?" Harry swears fiercely, breathless and trembling.

"It would be so easy," Draco says instead, conversation without a beginning, twirling his wand like a blade between his fingers.

"Draco?" Harry asks again, and this time fear, not sex, makes his voice rough.

Draco shakes his head, his eyes grey as the clouds hanging heavy as tombstones in the sky outside. He points his wand at Harry, a faint tang of bitterness filling his mouth as Harry flinches slightly.

"Don't do this, Draco," Harry pleads, twisting at his bonds, and it sounds awful, sounds _wrong_, for Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, to beg so brokenly.

This, right now, wand pointed at an enemy, syllables of death lying heavy on his tongue, waiting to be spoken, this is who Draco needs to be. Should be. _Must _be. The brand pulsing like a heartbeat on his left arm says the same.

Harry's breath is quick and shallow, his expression resigned, as Draco raises his wand.

"_Finite,"_ Draco says tiredly, and the ties unravel, disappear like smoke.

Startled hiss of exhaled breath, and Harry lowers his arms and rubs his wrists slowly. When he finally raises his eyes to look at Draco, some dark, frightening emotion makes his green eyes too-vibrant.

Avada Kedavra green.

"I said it would be easy, not that I was going to do it," Draco says, his voice brutal with feigned apathy.

"You fucking arsehole," Harry says through clenched teeth, his rage tinted homicidal with exhaustion and sorrow.

He punches Draco in the jaw, dull thud of flesh on flesh, and it forces Draco backwards into the center of the room, dust flitting in frenzied disruption through the air around him.

The blow hurts, worse than the actual injury it caused.

Draco refuses to acknowledge why that is true.

He jerks up his sleeve, movements quick and angry, and displays his left forearm for Harry's inspection. "You think this is a _decoration_?" Draco snarls, feeling the blackened brand on his arm writher sickeningly under his skin. "You think I have any loyalty to you, to your precious Mudblood friends?"

"Then _leave_," Harry yells, striding forward, his hands clenched into fists, and Draco flinches ever so slightly. "Stop this, end it, and the next time I see you on the battlefield I'll treat you like any other goddamn Death Eater."

"So that's a Gryffindor's idea of mercy?" Draco laughs jerkily, forced antipathy, feeling himself shatter and determined not to let it show. "Thanks for the screw, I'll be sure kill you later?"

Harry stiffens subtly, before all the anger flows out of his posture, leaving only a bone-deep weariness behind.

"Come back with me to camp." Harry's voice is now low, pleading. "We can keep you safe, Draco. Please. Come with me."

Draco feels himself _want,_ like a flower to the sun,and freezes his emotions into ice, cold and formidable and unyielding.

"If I defect, my family dies," he says in reply, and icicles frost his words like daggers.

He watches Harry's face crumple, then harden, and finds none of his previous schoolboy satisfaction in the sight.

"You can't redeem me, Harry. I suggest you don't try again."

He leaves the house with a bruise glowing vibrant as a sunset on his jaw and the coordinates of their next meeting stitching themselves inside the lining of his Death Eater robes.

* * *

It is Valentine's Day.

Harry moves through the crowds, and they part for him like water, eyes full of awe and fright. He gestures to the guards standing in front of Draco, and they hesitate, before flinching at Harry's glare, their fear rancid in the air.

Two years in Azkaban, even without the Dementors, has Draco recognizing that particular stink far too easily.

"Good thing Potter likes the way you look well enough to ask for your release, Malfoy," one whispers, voice raw as a crow's call in Draco's ear.

They release Draco, shoving him towards Harry with raucous laughter. "He's all yours," they leer, faces inhuman as carnival masks, worse than anything the Death Eaters ever donned.

Draco stumbles, struggling to pull together the tattered shreds of his dignity, distinctly aware of his ill-fitting robes and tangled hair, the raw and weeping skin around his wrists where the Aurors laughed as they spelled his manacles too tight.

"Come here, Draco," Harry commands, and there's nothing but threats thrumming through his voice. It is a new Harry Potter who stands in front of Draco now, war scars twisting dark like jungle vines over his skin, pale and insidious as snakes across his fist-clenched hands. This Harry Potter _is _the war, the grim consequences of all the blood and death strewn over the battlefields embodied in human form.

Draco barely recognizes him.

This Harry Potter is something dark.

Something frightening.

Draco thinks Voldemort would be pleased.

"We're leaving," Potter says, voice dispassionate as the catcalls continue, his hand too tight where it's curled around Draco's neck. Then, there's the unsettling jerk of Side-Along Disapparition, and just how _powerful_ is Potter now, to be able to Apparate from the Ministry, Draco wonders in the detached corner of his mind that hasn't yet cowed to the fear spreading like an oil slick through the rest of his thoughts.

They've arrived in a dark hallway, wallpaper stained with damp and curling from the walls. The chains have disappeared from Draco's wrists, as have the wounds.

"I _hate_ them," Potter hisses, unmistakably angry, and the portraits along the wall rattle ominously as dust shifts down from the ceiling.

"Why did you convince them to let me go?" Draco asks, careful to keep his tone neutral. Careful to keep the hope out of his voice, out of his expression.

There's still rage tightening Potter's expression when he answers, but there's honest confusion as well. "In school, and during the war we used to –" He stops, continues, voice strong, confident as his gaze flits over Draco's body. "I want that again, Draco."

Whatever hope Draco had dies instantly, withering away to nothingness. "Of course, Potter," Draco says emotionlessly, walking over to the other boy – his _owner – _and how could Draco have thought, even for an instant, that this could be anything other than that. Of course Potter wouldn't be able to ignore his actions during the war, wouldn't think he was better for anything than Azkaban or _this._

Draco jerks Harry's – _Potter's_ – robes open clumsily, tears stinging at his eyes.

"Wait, Draco. Draco! Damn it, _stop_!" Potter yells, wrenching Draco's hands away.

"Then what do you _want_?" Draco screams angrily, his voice raw-edged with frustration and fear. "I don't understand." He smiles bitterly, mockery of humor. "No one does anything for nothing, Potter."

"You want to know what I want?" Potter snarls, feral anger and predator eyes shining through the shadows writhing across his face. He yanks Draco to his feet, and Draco flinches, bracing himself for the blow he knows is coming. Waits for the sharp throbbing pain of broken bones, the dull relentless ache of bruises that don't fade for months with closed eyes, so at least he doesn't have to watch as Harry hurts him.

Instead, Harry – _Potter_ – kisses him.

It's gentle and slow and _worshipful_, like Draco's something precious, something to be treasured, and for several seconds, shock keeps Draco unresponsive, before he parts his lips slightly, and kisses back.

"Just this," Harry whispers, his forehead resting against Draco's, and then he winces, and backs away. "Or, not even this. I don't…I wouldn't…you don't owe me anything, Draco."

"Bloody hell, Potter," Draco drawls, leaning forward and kissing Harry roughly, plastering their bodies together. When he withdraws a few minutes later, he's breathless and so is Harry.

Harry looks stunned, too, suddenly years younger. Draco smirks. "You still talk far past the point when you have anything relevant to add to a conversation."

Harry grins in reply, and it's like the sun rose. "Shut it, Malfoy, you prat."

* * *

It is Valentine's Day.

They sit in the back section of a crowded restaurant, but there's no one else seated in their immediate vicinity.

It's been eighteen years since the War ended, and paparazzi are still prowling in front of the restaurant, waiting to besiege the grand Harry Potter when he emerges. By the time the third one has managed to lurk long enough to find the window Harry and Draco are sitting by – in the supposedly private section of the restaurant, Draco's had quite enough, thank you very much.

He flicks his wand at the windows, and smirks as the crystalline threads of ice completely obscure the outside of the glass. If the photographer got a little ice-chilled too, well, that's not Draco's fault.

"You hexed the photographer, too, didn't you?" Harry asks, leaning across the small table, the corners of his lips twitching upwards into a smile.

The warm yellow light flickering from the multitudes of candles placed strategically around the room flatters Harry, smoothes away the grooves from his face, disguises the silver threading like spider-silk through his black hair. The sight makes Draco's breath catch, and he covers it with a smile.

"The restaurant should provide proper service in these matters," Draco drawls with all the Malfoy arrogance he can muster, well aware that Harry's laughing even as Draco's speaking.

"Including hexing innocent photographers?" Harry smirks, and the expression makes his eyes crinkle.

Draco smiles wickedly, his own hair – more silver than white blonde now – not that he'll ever admit it, falling across his eyes. "If need be."

"You're incorrigible," Harry laughs, and the sound's warm, joyous. The sort of laughter never heard during the War.

There's a small rosebud pinned to the lapel of Harry's charcoal grey suit, to match the red one affixed to Draco's own black suit. Tomorrow, they'll both be in the _Daily Prophet's_ List of Well Dressed Witches and Wizards, alongside another article that exclaims over their daring Muggle attire and the matching platinum bands on their left-hand ring fingers, regardless of the fact they've been married for sixteen years now.

Draco reaches out across the table to hold Harry's hand, thumbing over the other man's wedding ring. "Happy Valentine's, Harry," Draco says softly, all laughter gone from his voice, only sincerity remaining.

"Happy Valentine's, Draco," Harry says in reply as he stands, pulling Draco up with him. Draco doesn't let his eyes leave Harry's as he walks around the table, the candlelight flickering gold across their skin.

He kisses Harry until they're both breathless and smiling in the middle of the restaurant. They both ignore the whistles and applause and the white bright flare of the photographers' cameras when they leave.

This, what they have, is love, Draco thinks, and knows he's never in his entire life been quite so happy.

* * *

It is Valentine's Day.

Draco lays a single red rose, devastatingly perfect, in front of the white marble tombstone before him. Ten minutes later, he stands, wipes the tears from his face, and leaves.

* * *

**A/N: **Erm…review, please! Tell me if I was successful, lovelies. (It was my first time writing anything near this slashy, so I'm nervous, people).


End file.
